User blog:JonathanMarkoff/Speaker of the US House of Representatives (for my amusement)
The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. The office is permitted by Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, although the actual process for selecting the Speaker comes from rules adopted by the House, rather than the Constitution. Generally, the Speaker is elected from the majority party in the House. The Speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the Vice President of the United States. Southern Victory During the Remembrance Era in United States history, from the 1880s to the 1910s, the office of Speaker of the House was monopolized by the Democratic Party. In 1918, the first election held after the Great War, this run was broken when a Socialist candidate, Seymour Stedman, was elected as his party's first House Speaker. While the Socialists controlled the office throughout the 1920s, and for much of the succeeding two decades, frequent ups and downs led to the sporadic resurgence of the Democrats. Literary comment The series does not specify the beginning and end dates for each Speaker's tenure. The above list uses the best estimates based on what we do know. Other Speakers John Nance Garner appears directly in ''Joe Steele'' (and its short source) as House Speaker, before being elected Vice President as in OTL. He also has a brief indirect role as VP in The War That Came Early: The Big Switch, having been Speaker of the House before the POD. Sam Rayburn appears as Speaker in The Man With the Iron Heart and "News From the Front." He is probably also the unnamed Speaker with a small background role in The War That Came Early: The Big Switch. In the first edition of Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance, Rayburn retains the post of Speaker even as the Race Invasion of Tosev 3 rages on, but all mention of him was removed from the second, finalized edition of that novel. Joseph W. Martin appears as Speaker in The Man With the Iron Heart, succeeding Rayburn as in OTL. In addition, some works make notable references to former Speakers who either died before the relevant POD or did not do anything significant after it. Historical Speakers in non-Speaker roles James G. Blaine appears in How Few Remain as the President of the United States. There is no indication that he was ever Speaker. Thomas Brackett Reed is referenced posthumously in The Great War: American Front as having been President, with no suggestion that he was ever Speaker. Congressman Sam Rayburn appears in the short story version of "Joe Steele," where he is murdered in 1937 before he can become Speaker. He is not mentioned in the expanded novel of the same story. Confederate States Speaker of the House In the short history of the Confederate States, there was one Speaker of the Confederate House of Representatives - Thomas Bocock, in office 1862-1865. Bocock appears as Speaker in The Guns of the South. There are no Speakers identified in Southern Victory, even though numerous Confederate Congressmen appear. Category:Blog posts